WVC 18 - 7 B- 11
§18-7B-11. Termination of membership.
(a) Any member whose employment with a participating employer
terminates after the completion of six complete years of employment
service is eligible to terminate his or her annuity account and
receive a distribution from the member's annuity account, in an
amount equal to the member's contribution plus one third of the
employer contributions and any earnings thereon. Any member whose
employment with a participating employer terminates after the
completion of nine complete years of employment service is eligible
to terminate his or her annuity account and receive a distribution
from the member's annuity account, in an amount equal to the
member's contribution plus two thirds of the employer's
contributions and any earnings thereon. Any member whose
employment with a participating employer terminates after the
completion of twelve complete years of employment service is
eligible to terminate his or her annuity account and receive a
distribution of all funds contributed and accumulated in his or her
annuity account. Any member whose employment with a participating
employer terminates prior to the completion of six complete years
of employment service is eligible to terminate his or her annuity
account and receive a distribution from the member's annuity
account, in an amount equal to the member's contribution plus any
earnings thereon: Provided, That on the death or permanent, total
disability of any member, that member is eligible to terminate his
or her annuity account and receive all funds contributed to or accumulated in his or her annuity account.

(b)(1) Upon termination of employment, regardless of whether
the member has taken a distribution of all or a portion of his or
her vested account, the remaining balance, if any, in the member's
employer account that is not vested shall be remitted and paid into
a suspension account to be administered by the Board. The Board
shall propose rules for legislative approval in accordance with
article three, chapter twenty-nine-a of this code regarding the
distribution of any balance in the special account created by this
section: Provided, That any funds in the account shall be used
solely for the purpose of reducing employer contributions in future
years.

(2) Any account balances remitted to the suspension account
herein shall be maintained by the Board in the suspension account
in the name of the terminated employee for a period of five years
following the member's termination of employment. For each
terminated employee at the culmination of the five-year period, the
Board shall certify in writing to each contributing employer the
amount of the account balance plus earnings thereon attributable to
each separate contributing employer's previously terminated
employee's account which has been irrevocably forfeited due to the
elapse of a five-year period since termination pursuant to section
sixteen of this article.

(c) Upon certification to the several contributing employers
of the aggregate account balances plus earnings thereon which have been irrevocably forfeited pursuant to this section, the several
contributing employers shall be permitted in the next succeeding
fiscal year or years to reduce their total aggregate contribution
requirements pursuant to section seventeen of this article, for the
then current fiscal year by an amount equal to the aggregate
amounts irrevocably forfeited and certified as such to each
contributing employer: Provided, That should the participating
employer no longer be contributing to the Defined Contribution
System, any funds in the account shall be paid directly to the
employer.

(d) Upon the use of the amounts irrevocably forfeited to any
contributing employer as a reduction in the then current fiscal
year contribution obligation and upon notification provided by the
several contributing employers to the Board of their intention to
use irrevocably forfeited amounts, the Board shall direct the
distribution of the irrevocably forfeited amounts from the
suspension account to be deposited on behalf of the contributing
employer to the member annuity accounts of its then current
employees pursuant to section seventeen of this article: Provided,
That notwithstanding any provision of this article to the contrary,
when a member is or has been elected to serve as a member of the
Legislature, and the proper discharge of his or her duties of
public office requires that member to be absent from his or her
teaching, nonteaching or administrative duties, the time served in
discharge of his or her duties of the legislative office are credited as time served for purposes of computing service credit,
regardless when this time was served: Provided, however, That the
Board may not require any additional contributions from that member
in order for the Board to credit him or her with the contributing
service credit earned while discharging official legislative
duties: Provided further, That nothing herein may be construed to
relieve the employer from making the employer contribution at the
member's regular salary rate or rate of pay from that employer on
the contributing service credit earned while the member is
discharging his or her official legislative duties. These employer
payments shall commence as of the first day of July, two thousand
three: And provided further, That any member to which the
provisions of this subsection apply may elect to pay to the Board
an amount equal to what his or her contribution would have been for
those periods of time he or she was serving in the Legislature.

Note: WV Code updated with legislation passed through the 2016 Regular Session
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